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A right-wing Austrian political party’s published a flash game in which the countryside is overrun with minarets and mosques and players must stop their construction. Because nationalism and xenophobia’s so much more fun when it’s in the German language!

Moschee Baba (“Bye-Bye Mosque”) is a minute-long, shooting-gallery type game in which a stop sign is clicked on a minaret, mosque, or muezzin (the guys who sound the morning calls to prayer). It’s a political ad for the Freedom Party in the Styrian province; regional elections are coming at the end of the month.

No one’s killed and nothing’s destroyed in the game, but its tone is pretty hateful and paranoid and it’s pissed off political opponents but good. Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Muslim community have demanded the game’s removal and an investigation for “incitement.”

The game is, of course, a gross caricature of the reality of the situation in Austria. Only four mosques with a visible minaret exist in the country. None are in Styria, whose population is 1.2 percent Muslim.

After the game ends, it serves players with a push poll, asking if there should be a ban on minaret construction, wearing of burqas, niqabs or other Islamic garments, and if Muslims should sign some oath accepting Austrian law’s primacy over the Koran. Fun stuff.

“Fordson” is a feature length documentary film that follows four talented high school football players from Dearborn Michigan as they gear up for their big senior year rivalry game during the last ten days of Ramadan, a month when Muslims traditionally fast every day from sunrise to sundown.

The story is set against the backdrop of the stunningly beautiful Fordson High School, a public high school built by Henry Ford in 1922, which was once all white, but now boasts a 98% Arab population. As our team readies itself to play its affluent, cross town rival, we unearth the adversity faced by a community that is desperately holding onto its Islamic faith and trying to gain acceptance from their fellow U.S. citizens in post 9-11 America.

Through the eyes of the team, their coaches, and their fans, we get an unprecedented glimpse inside the lives of a community that is home to the largest concentration of Arabs in any city outside of the Middle East, and their determination to hold on to the American Dream.

According to Austin Police Department Sgt. Joe Chacon, the death of Austin schoolteacher and peace activist Riad Hamad remains under investigation. Chacon says homicide investigators are “open to all possibilities” but that the initial investigation reflects that Hamad appears to have committed suicide. Hamad had been reported missing by his family on Monday night, April 14, and (partly by means of a cell-phone GPS search authorized by his wife) his car was found Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot off South Lakeshore Boulevard, on the south side of Lady Bird Lake. A land and water search turned up nothing more, but a little after 2pm on Wednesday, passersby on the hike-and-bike trail on the opposite (north) side of the lake, just east of the I-35 bridge, spotted a body floating near the shore. Hamad’s eyes were covered in duct tape, his legs and his hands also bound – fueling Internet-amplified rumors that he had been murdered. According to a report that day by KXAN-TV news, “Park-goers who saw the body said the death did not look accidental. They said the man’s face was wrapped with duct tape, and his arms appeared to be tied in front of his body.”

On Thursday, April 17, APD released a statement saying, “The bindings of his hands and legs and placement of the tape were consistent with Hamad having done this to himself.” Chacon told the Chroniclethat additional evidence – including a security videotape of the parking area where Hamad’s car was found and statements from persons who knew him that “he had been experiencing suicidal thoughts” – also support a finding of suicide but that police are waiting for completion of the entire investigation, including the full autopsy and toxicology report, which will take several weeks. “For all intents and purposes, as far as we know right now,” Chacon said this week, “this was a suicide.”

An autopsy was performed by Travis County Chief Medical Examiner David Dolinak, generating yet another controversy over official autopsy procedures. On April 17, when Hamad’s body was transported by a funeral home from the medical examiner’s office to the Islamic Center of Greater Austin on Manor Road, said Imam Ibrahim Dremali, it was in a “barbaric” condition, one that he had never seen in 20 years of preparing bodies for burial. Dremali said the body was seeping blood from one incision and was inadequately sutured, and in spots the flesh was torn as though “an animal might have attacked him.” He said two experienced colleagues working with him “panicked” at the sight of the corpse and left the room, and he had to use towels and tape to clean Hamad’s body and to pad the brain cavity and the torso, in order to make it presentable for burial. Later, he demanded and received a meeting with Dolinak and APD Chief Art Ace vedo. Afterward, Dremali and Dolinak each told theChronicle that they believe the meeting was useful and should lead to better medical examiner practices, but Dremali said he “cannot accept” the apology offered by Dolinak for any misunderstanding or mistakes. “I believe they were sending us a message,” he said, “and that’s what I told the people here [at the mosque], that they believe they do not have to respect the bodies of Muslims.”

Asked about Dremali’s charges, Dolinak said that although there may have been some misunderstanding over his office’s expectation that the funeral home would be doing the final, cosmetic preparations of the body, he insisted, “We did absolutely nothing on our part to show any intentional disrespect.” He said they followed standard autopsy procedures and that he simply can’t say what Dremali may have experienced in similar situations before. “In most cases, all the final preparations [of the body] occur at a funeral home,” he said, “but as in any religion, there is a whole spectrum of practices, depending on the family’s wishes. We’ll certainly try to work with [local Muslim clerics] better on the next case.” Dolinak also could not confirm what Dremali described as apparent facial bruising on the body.

She’ll be at the Takin’ It to the Streets event along with others like Mos Def.

InfoWhat: Takin’ It to the Streets: Urban International Festival
When: June 19th, 2010
Time: 9am-9pm
Location: 6734 S. Kedzie Ave. in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois Click here to see the map
Price: FREE*

*donations encouraged

20,000 people. 200 vendors.

100 artists. 4 stages.

1 day.

Takin’ It to the Streets is a Muslim-led festival where artistic expression, spirituality and urban creativity inspire social change.

Takin’ It to the Streets bridges today’s cultural divides by connecting diverse racial, ethnic, and religious communities through a dynamic festival. The festival will enrich cross-cultural community building not only in Chicago, but around the world.

Prayer Center: A quite space open all day for meditation, reflection and prayer

Additional Streets 2010 Events

Since its inception in 1997 as a single-day event, Takin’ It to the Streets has steadily grown in attendance and impact, and in 2010 it is preceded by a full week of events that embrace a new Muslim cultural renaissance.

A three-day festival highlighting the power of film as a tool for peace and social change. The festival will also screen films from the One Chicago, One Nation online film contest. Click here for more info

World Music artists Tinariwen, from Mali, and Omar Faruk Tekbilek, from Turkey, will perform at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Click here for more info

About the Producer

Takin’ it to the Streets is produced by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), a globally recognized leader that aims to change, serve and inspire by working on social justice issues, delivering a wide range of direct services, and cultivating the arts in urban communities.

I am a little late in finding this hilarious article. Since the Miss USA, Rima Fakih, happens to be Arab and Muslim many have accused her of many things. A genius work of satire Wajahat Ali writes “How Miss USA will push the secret Muslim agenda”. I highly recommend the read.